Jharkhand Chief minister Madhu Koda and the then prime minister Manmohan Singh might have tampered the list or recommendations made by a screening committee in 2007. A CAG report tabled in the Parliament in 2013 made these allegations of illegalities of coal allocation in the state, a newspaper report suggested today. Since Jharkhand was under President's rule, it was tabled in the Parliament but was largely ignored by its members.

In 2007 Manmohan Singh held the coal ministry under him as well. The newspaper quoted the CAG report No.1 of 2013 of Jharkhand Revenue Sector which alleged, "When the recommendation of the subgroup (screening committee) was sent (June 2007) to the then CM for his approval, he modified and altered the names and made final recommendations to the Centre though no reason was assigned for such alteration and modification."

The screening committee had recommended 6 companies for the allocation. While Koda removed the name of 3 companies, he added five more, without explaining to the committee the rationale behind his decision. The whole point of having a screening committee in the first place was rendered useless as a result, the report said.

the companies which were not in the final list of the screening committee and yet received coal blocks were Tata Steel Ltd, JAS Infrastructure, Essar Power Ltd, Arcelor Mittal India Ltd, GVK Powers and Gagan Sponge Iron Pvt Ltd.

Despite being asked by the CAG, the government gave no answers about the changes it made to the recommendations of the committee.